


Keep Your Heart in Mine

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:09:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28165281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: A loss.
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	Keep Your Heart in Mine

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt**   
>  _"So if you're not pregnant, what the hell is going on?" - Soran_

She shows up on Emily’s doorstep in Atlanta one Sunday morning, eyes red and swollen, with nothing more than the clothes on her back and her phone in her hand.

“Linds?” Emily asks, sounding confused, as she opens her door, yawning a little and stretching out her arms above her head. The thin tee she wears rises up just enough to reveal the sharp lines of her abs, but that isn’t what Lindsey notices. It’s Emily’s feet, the thick pair of white cotton socks, the way the cuff of her worn, bleach-stained sweats—the legs too long for her—gets caught under her heels.

“Are those mine?” the taller woman asks, because this she can focus on, this is simple and familiar and easy. And Emily looks down, a pink tint spreading over her cheeks as she realizes that her best friend is correct, they are Lindsey’s. A pair of Thorns sweatpants from their first season together on the team, a pair she’d borrowed at some point over the years and just never bothered to give back.

Emily shrugs sheepishly. “Whoops?” she smiles, still standing in the doorway. “But, like, do you really think my pants are the most important issue right now?” She reaches a hand out to trace the wet trails of tear tracks down the brunette’s face. “Because I can think of a few things that seem a little more pressing, Linds.”

And Lindsey seems to collapse a little in on herself, whimpering weakly as the blonde moves to wrap an arm around the taller woman’s waist, offering support as she helps the other woman into the apartment. “Here we go,” Emily says softly, helping her best friend to the living room, gently lowering her to the couch.

“Lindsey,” her voice is soft as she kneels before the younger woman, “what’s going on? Are you okay?”

But Lindsey can only shake her head. She’s not okay, she’s the furthest thing from it. But even though Emily is the only person she could think to run to, the only person she wanted—needed—when her world began to collapse, she’s not ready to talk about it. She can’t, not yet.

“I just—“ she whispers, looking up at Emily when she feels the older woman’s hands against her face, gentle and soft, “can I stay? I just need a place to stay for a little while.”

“Oh, honey,” Emily nods, and caresses her jaw, “you know you can. You can always stay, as long as you need.” She looks at her friend, seeing the exhaustion, the pain, etched across Lindsey’s face. “Why don’t you lay down, okay?” she suggested, already carefully nudging the brunette to lay down in her side. “Just for a little bit, yeah?”

Lindsey doesn’t put up a fight. She couldn’t have even if she wanted to. She had nothing left, no reserves of strength to fall back upon. She was empty.

“There you go,” the blonde whispers softly, taking Lindsey’s phone from her hand before covering her with a soft, fleecy blanket, reaching down to undo the brunette’s shoes and place them neatly nearby. “Just close your eyes, Linds, everything’s going to be okay.” And Emily knelt there at her best friend’s side, combing through her loose hair, stroking down her side, until she was sure Lindsey was asleep.

— — —

No one knows anything. Lindsey’s been sleeping on her couch for almost an hour now, and Emily’s texted all of the people who might know what’s going on. Well, almost. She hasn’t contacted Lindsey’s family, not wanting to worry them, or her boyfriend, not wanting to wake the other woman up when she inevitably starts telling Russell exactly what she thinks of him.

There is another option, of course. And it’s currently charging on the coffee table just a few feet away.

Emily looks over at it, and then to Lindsey, seeing the heavy line on her forehead. The one that only appears when her best friend is upset. And there is no decision to make. Lindsey is hurting, and Emily can’t help without answers.

She knows the other woman’s passcode. She’s entered it enough times on the mornings when Lindsey drove them to practice, or when her hands were full in the kitchen, or a thousand reasons that someone might have to unlock their best friend’s phone. And, yes, Emily knows that Lindsey might be mad, but it’s a chance she’s willing to take. She’d do anything—anything—for the woman asleep on her couch.

Still, Emily feels a twinge of guilt as she enters the four numbers. But the feeling is quickly overtaken by shock, and then anger, when she unlocks the phone and sees the messages—more than a dozen of them—waiting for Lindsey’s attention.

Each one is more vile than the last. Each accusation more disgusting than the one before. And if not for the fact that Lindsey is there, that Lindsey needs her, Emily is one hundred percent sure that she would be on a flight to Colorado right now, on her way to do serious damage to the man who has so clearly broken her best friend. Instead, the blonde locks the phone, setting it down on the table as she closes her eyes, tries to settle her breathing, quiet the thudding of her heart.

There’s a sound from the living room, and Emily finds the blanket kicked to the floor, and Lindsey looking around with panicked, unfocused eyes. “Hey, hey,” she sits on the coffee table before the brunette, her hand coming to rest over Lindsey’s shoulder, light and gentle. “You’re okay, you’re with me.” And slowly, she watches the fear fade away, she watches her best friend come back to her.

“I’m sorry,” Lindsey whispers, sitting up a little, but Emily shakes her head, brushing the words away.

“You never have to apologize to me, Linds,” she tells the brunette, “never.” And they sit for a few minutes while Lindsey wakes fully, shifting to sit back against the couch, crossing her legs and resting her hands in her lap. “But I need to apologize to you,” Emily admits. “I was worried, and I looked at your phone.”

The taller woman’s head lifts to meet her eyes, and Emily nods. “I saw the messages from Russell,” she whispers, trying to keep the grief she feels for her friend from her voice, “I saw the—“ but she can’t bring herself to say the words, switching instead to the one positive thing the messages revealed.

“I guess congratulations are in order?” Emily asks quietly, reaching out to rub over her best friend’s arm. “If you’re happy—I’m happy for you.” But Lindsey’s face cracks, and her eyes fill up with tears again.

“I’m not—I’m not pregnant,” the brunette whispers, and the pain in her voice cuts through Emily like a knife. “Not anymore.” Lindsey’s hands shake as she reaches up to push back some hair that has fallen into her eyes, struggling to keep herself together. “I was but—I lost it, a few days ago.”

Emily can’t stop herself—couldn’t have even if she’d wanted to. She wraps Lindsey up in a tight hug, stroking her hair and whispering soft, soothing words against her neck, letting the other woman cling to her, soak her shirt with her tears. “I didn’t even know—not until it was too late. Not until I was at the hospital.”

Lindsey pauses, and Emily brushes her lips against the other woman’s brow. “You don’t have to say anything, not if you don’t want to,” she tells her best friend. But Lindsey just shakes her head against the blonde’s shoulder.

“I want—I need to,” she says in a voice so quiet and so small that the shorter woman makes a mental note to murder the man who hurt her best friend the next time he’s within spitting distance of her. But for now, Emily hugs her closer, letting Lindsey know that it was okay, that she could say anything.

And after a shaky, shuddering breath, she does. Lindsey tells her best friend about the night she and her boyfriend had come home after an evening of drinks at his favorite bar, how upset he’d been at thinking she’d been flirting with the barkeeper. It had been an accident, the way he’d startled her on the icy steps up to his third-floor apartment. How she’d fallen backwards, but thought everything had been okay. Until the next morning, the sun only barely peeking through the waning dark. How she’d awoken in a spreading pool of blood.

Lindsey weeps as she tells the blonde of the trip to the emergency room, how angry he’d been, accusing her of cheating on him, of letting another man have what was his.

He hadn’t cared about the baby she was losing, Lindsey whispers, hadn’t cared about the pain she was in, not the physical or the emotional. And finally, finally Lindsey admits what she’s known for so long, known but been unable to acknowledge.

“It’s over,” she says, burying her face against Emily’s neck, “it has been for a long time, I think. But now, now it’s real.”

And for a moment, Emily doesn’t know what to say. What she should say. She only knows that she loves this woman, her best friend. And that whatever Lindsey needs from her, she’ll make it happen.

“Stay?” the blonde asks softly, still holding Lindsey close, still stroking over her back. “Stay until you’re ready to figure out your next steps?”

Lindsey pulls back just enough to look at her face, to see the emotion in her eyes. “You sure?” And Emily can see the uncertainty there, the younger woman’s belief that she isn’t wanted, couldn’t be wanted. The doubts that Russell had spent years cultivating within the brunette.

She takes Lindsey’s hands, pulling her up to stand, careful not to move too quickly now that she knows what’s happened over the last few days. “Never been more sure about anything,” Emily promises, and starts to walk her best friend deeper into the apartment. “I’m going to take care of you, and when you’re ready, we’re going to figure everything out, okay?”

The brunette stops them in the hall, turning to look at Emily, gratitude writ across her face. “I love you, Em,” she says softly, and there’s a depth to the words that neither of them are ready for. But it’s enough to hear it there in the words, enough to know that it’s there. “I love you,” Lindsey whispers again, and presses her forehead against Emily’s, the person she trusts most in the world.

And Emily just gives her a gentle smile, one that eases the ache in both their hearts, “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> “Winter Bear,” Coby Grant


End file.
